The Dateline episode “She Did Everything Right” investigates the 2018 murder of Lauren McCluskey. Dateline’s Josh Mankiewicz reports from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City where McCluskey, 21, was a senior and a track star when she was killed outside a dormitory.
Prior to her death, McCluskey had a brief relationship with Melvin Rowland, a 37-year-old convicted sex offender who had spent more than ten years in prison and had lied to her about his name, age, and criminal history. McCluskey ended the relationship after one month, when a friend told her Rowland’s identity and criminal history.
When the relationship ended, the harassment started. McCluskey told her parents, called the campus police multiple times, and called the Salt Lake City police, which according to Dateline sent her back to the campus police. Tragedy ensued.
After shooting McCluskey, Rowland — on the run — headed to the Trinity A.M.E. Church in Salt Lake City where he killed himself. It was a strange destination. Trinity A.M.E. Church is a historic African Methodist Episcopal Church, Utah’s first black congregation, which was founded in the 1880s. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.
According to the Department of Interior’s National Park Service, the church holds “symbolic
value to the black community as the focus of black social, educational, and religious activity in Utah. The role of the black churches in acting as a cohesive force in the black community, and as both a refuge and a strength, takes on especial meaning in a state where they are such a tiny minority.”
The associate pastor of the church was outside of the building with his 4-year-old son and another member of the church when police arrived just hours after McCluskey’s murder. According to ABC 4, police pointed their guns at them first and then found Rowland dead by gunshot inside the church. When the pastor, Daniel Stalling, was asked why Rowland chose the church, Stalling said, “Maybe he wanted to make it right with God… but still I’m baffled as to why he chose here. We don’t know why.” Dateline airs Mondays at 10 pm on NBC.
